The Old Playbook’s Last Round

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Via the Washington Times, Young conservatives push GOP tolerance on gay marriage, other social issues:

“There are a lot of LGBT people out there who are brilliant small business owners, who hold to the principles of limited government, strong families, fiscal conservatism and strong national security—things that we as Republicans love—but they don’t have a place in the Republican Party right now,” said Jerri Ann Henry, the campaign manager for Young Conservatives for the Freedom to Marry. “What’s unfortunate is they also clearly do not have a place in the Democratic Party.”

As the article acknowledges, there isn’t likely to be any real alteration in the GOP’s opposition to same-sex marriage during this election cycle. But in future elections, running on a platform in favor of invalidating hundreds of thousands of marriages, and leaving many of the children of these marriages without the security of two married parents, is going to be viewed as unacceptably extreme beyond the confines of Iowa’s Republican caucuses. And that will have costs. Whether the GOP can change before those costs are exacted remains to be seen.

5 Comments for “The Old Playbook’s Last Round”

  1. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    As the article acknowledges, there isn’t likely to be any real alteration in the GOP’s opposition to same-sex marriage during this election cycle. But in future elections, running on a platform in favor of invalidating hundreds of thousands of marriages, and leaving many of the children of these marriages without the security of two married parents, is going to be viewed as unacceptably extreme beyond the confines of Iowa’s Republican caucuses. And that will have costs.

    Yes.

    <emWhether the GOP can change before those costs are exacted remains to be seen.

    Yes, again.

  2. posted by Mark Peterson on

    In 2012, counting the California marriages, there were around 100k married same-sex citizens. Yet the party had no trouble “running on a platform in favor of invalidating hundreds of thousands of marriages, and leaving many of the children of these marriages without the security of two married parents,” and despite the post-election autopsy, they’ll almost certainly be running on the same platform in 2016. Why should 2020 be any different?

    • posted by Tom Scharbach on

      [D]espite the post-election autopsy, they’ll almost certainly be running on the same platform in 2016. Why should 2020 be any different?

      In 2020, marriage equality will have been a fact-on-the-ground for five years, and the “de-facto nullification” (so-called “religious freedom”) effort will failed in most states. The immediate backlash against the Supreme Court decision, to the extent that it exists outside the world of conservative Christianity and Republican politics, will have spent its course. Americans will probably support marriage equality by about 70-30% (which seems to be the leveling off number in Canada, which has a similar culture), and few Americans (probably less than 15%, mostly clustered in a half-dozen states) will support legal efforts to undo marriage equality.

      So the political environment surrounding marriage equality will be significantly different than it is today, if for no other reason than marriage equality will have been a national fact for five years and the sky will not have fallen, even in Texas.

      How the Republican Party will respond in 2020 (“Whether the GOP can change before those costs are exacted remains to be seen.“) is a good question. I have no doubt that the Republican Party will have changed by 2024, but I’m not looking for change in 2020 with a lot of confidence.

      • posted by Mark Peterson on

        Agree with all of this. But in 2020, the base of the Republican Party will almost certainly still be white evangelicals, with a large number from the South. It’s unlikely that by 2020 anything close to a majority of this group will support equal marriage, since only around a quarter of them now support it.

        Maybe they’ll just drop the fight. But I wouldn’t bet on it. And as we saw today with the NC legislature and SB2, their ability to manufacture victims knows no bounds.

        • posted by Mark on

          Southern White Christians are still fighting the Civil War today, so I don’t see them giving up the fight against queers anytime soon. Certainly not in the next few decades. They are a particularly ignorant and hateful group of people.

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